A word from the Shaykh on explaining beneficial knowledge and righteous deeds and their conditions

The Shaykh: Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evils of our own selves and from the bad of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whomsoever He misleads, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger. .
As for what follows: Before I deliver the word in which Allah Blessed and Exalted is He may open for me, I wish to comment on the opening word of the session and the good opinion the presenter held of me. Following the example of the rightly guided caliph Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (may Allah be pleased with him), I say: "O Allah, do not hold me accountable for what they say, and make me better than what they think, and forgive me for what they do not know." As for my word, it concerns, in brief, so that we may free up time to answer questions, the topic of beneficial knowledge and righteous deeds. As for beneficial knowledge, two conditions are required of it. The first is that it be derived from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). The Book and the Sunnah are two matters known to all Muslims, despite the great or small differences among them in understanding some of their texts. What I wish to dwell on regarding the Book and the Sunnah is two matters: one concerning the Qur'an, and the other concerning the Sunnah. As for the first, it is the characteristic of the student of knowledge that his constant practice is to understand the Qur'an in light of the Sunnah. This is because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was addressed by Allah Mighty and Majestic in the Noble Qur'an with His saying: Excuse me, let us pause for a moment. Therefore, the student of beneficial knowledge must rely on the Sunnah in his understanding of the Qur'an. This is a point agreed upon, praise be to Allah, by all Muslims, despite their differences in the method of establishing the Sunnah. We are not now in the position to discuss that. If it is agreed upon by all Muslims that the Qur'an must be interpreted by the Sunnah, then completing beneficial knowledge requires that we seek out the authentic Sunnah. This is a point, or a matter, that the majority of scholars in the present age neglect. That is because they transmit from the Sunnah what they come across without being alert, or without taking care, that what they are transmitting from the hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is not correctly attributed to him. In that case, they fall into two prohibitions, one affecting the other. The first prohibition is attributing to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) what he did not say. He said in the mass-transmitted hadith: And in another narration: Therefore, it is not permissible for anyone who is eager for beneficial knowledge, whether he is one of the scholars who are well-known or a student of knowledge who has just begun seeking this knowledge, to transmit a hadith from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) unless they have established its correct attribution to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). In that case, the student of knowledge is on the correct methodology in his seeking of knowledge, because first he relies on the Book and the Sunnah, then he interprets the Qur'an by the Sunnah, and finally he relies only on the authentic Sunnah, excluding what is not authentic from it. Second, he is responsible for the hadiths he publishes among the people that are not, in reality, correctly attributed to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). This is beneficial knowledge. However, we usually add to the two previous sources, the Book and the Sunnah, a third thing, which is very necessary in our time due to the differences in perspectives, derivation, citation, and understanding from the Book and the Sunnah. So that the scholar or student of knowledge may be safe in his interpretation of the Book and the Sunnah from leaning to the right or the left and falling into misguidance without intending or realizing it, he must add to his reliance on the Book and the Sunnah a third thing, which is relying on what the righteous Salaf (may Allah be pleased with them) were upon. This is because when the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was asked in the hadith of the sects, in which it is stated that the Muslims will split into seventy-three sects, all in the Fire except one, and when he was asked about this saved sect from the Fire, he said: This is one narration. The saved sect is the community. In another narration, he said: We find in both narrations that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not limit himself to saying "the Book and the Sunnah," but rather he first said: Then he said: Why did he mention "and my Companions" and not suffice with saying: The truth is that this would suffice, because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said in the authentic hadith: So whoever holds fast to the Book and the Sunnah will not go astray. But do you not know with me that every Islamic sect, whether it was ancient and some of it perished, or whether it was ancient and continued until our time, or what has newly emerged in our time under many names and lineages, do you not believe with me that there is no sect among all these that disavows the Book and the Sunnah? There is none, praise be to Allah, that openly or explicitly declares that it is not upon the Book and the Sunnah. Otherwise, in that case, it would not be considered among the Islamic sects...